


Blood and Tears

by bluspirits



Category: Marvel (Comics), Spider-Gwen (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6509368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluspirits/pseuds/bluspirits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock is fifteen the first time he kills someone. He's also fifteen when he cries for the last time. </p><p>Occasionally he wonders if these two things are related.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Tears

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little bit of baby murderdock for [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/5176.html?thread=12479288#cmt12479288) prompt on the Daredevil kink meme. 
> 
> I'm not super proud of this, but I hope you like it!

Matt Murdock is eleven when he first sees someone die. Maybe sees is too generous a word, with the blindness, but it's the best he can come up with. He's been in the vicinity of death before, around it, near it, but hasn't stood right there next to it and watched it happen yet. Not until now.

It's bloody. He can tell that even without sight, smell it, feel it splatter his skin, taste it in the air. 

He knows before the heartbeat stops that Stick is dead. 

He's surrounded now, men with swords, ten of them. They're waiting, to see what he'll do, to decide what they'll do with him. 

Stick taught him never to give up. To go down fighting. And ten trained men with swords might be long odds, but he's a warrior. At least he'll die on his feet. 

His hand snaps out, catching the nearest man in the wrist and knocking the sword from his hand. Matt kicks him in the face before ducking under the swipe of a sword. 

He gets three down before they restrain him. Two men hold him steady while another levels a sword at his throat. Matt snarls and struggles against their hold. He can’t get free. 

"You'll do," the man with the sword at his throat says. Matt doesn't find this reassuring. Instead, he feels cold seep all the way through his body. His life has just changed, he can tell. It's not the first time, his life has changed at least three times in the past few years, but he can tell that this is the big one. 

\---

"Get up," the teacher says in Japanese. There are so many languages here. Mostly English and Japanese, but so many others get mixed in. One month they gave him orders in nothing but French. He didn't speak French. He does now. You have to be a fast learner to survive here.

You have to earn everything here. If you can’t beat your opponent completely, then you don’t deserve rest. You don’t deserve food. Matt knows that now. He’s learned.

He’s broken more bones in his body and other's bodies than he knew existed. He’d bet he knows more anatomy than your average med student. 

Matt stands. He can feel new bruises forming. “I’m up. Are we gonna fight?” 

He gets a cut to his cheek for talking back. He grins, blood filling his mouth and staining his teeth. They think he’s too angry, out of control. 

They’re not wrong. 

He can hear the creak of the teacher’s bad leg. He walks through any pain, and it’s barely noticeable to anyone else. But Matt knows what to look for. (or hear for, whatever). 

One good kick to the man’s thigh, just above the knee, sends him to the ground, and Matt is on top of him before he can move. He slams the teacher’s head into the concrete floor, then pulls the knife from his limp hand. He slices across the man’s cheek like he had done to Matt, then walks away. 

The man’s heart is still beating. But he’s not a teacher anymore. He has nothing left to teach Matt. (teachers never last long. Matt’s a fast learner.) 

\---

Once, to test his senses, they locked Matt in a soundproof room. He had begged for silence so often he hadn’t truly realized how terrible the total nothingness could be. 

That became their favorite punishment. 

Control was their most repeated idea. Matt had some trouble with that. 

(he found himself in the soundproof room a lot) 

He got it eventually though. Or at least looked like he did. He was sure he looked like he was in complete control to everyone else. And he did try to be. But sometimes he couldn’t quite bite down his anger. 

He was controlled, disciplined, everything was planned for. Everything anticipated. 

Sometimes he snapped and could hear everyone in the city screaming, crying. But those were outliers. 

He has it all under control. 

\---

Matt Murdock is fifteen the first time he kills someone. (By now he's so far past his first witnessed death that he's stopped keeping count. It would be pointless anyway.) 

Matt Murdock is also fifteen the last time he cries. 

Sometimes he wonders if these two things are related. 

They all want him to kill someone here. He hears them whispering. Saying he isn’t strong enough, isn’t doing this for the cause, is too controlled by anger. They might not be wrong. 

They make it clear that everyone is expendable here, especially him. He can kill any one of them. (sometimes, when they break his arms, expect him to fight, don’t feed him for days and say it’s to make him better, he wants to) 

He wishes he could say that he was forced to, that the first kill was not his choice, that it was self defense. It wasn’t. It wasn’t like they locked him in a room and said only the survivor could leave. It’s not like the guy was a real threat. 

It’s a normal fight. No weapons. The man is not even close to a challenge. But he just keeps hitting him. He just doesn’t stop. It isn’t until the heartbeat stops that he realizes. His knuckles are coated in blood, and there are tears on his cheeks. 

It isn’t some special event. It’s all his choice. (he didn’t mean to). He wanted it. Deep down, he had to want it. (he knows he wanted all the next times)

The teacher has been watching. He touches Matt’s shoulder. (it’s the first touch that isn’t punishment in years. He leans into it).

“Good work, Matthew,” he says. And Matt feels wrong inside until the teacher says this. It feels better. Good work. Is this good? 

He doesn’t think so deep down, but they say so. This is the only thing that makes them proud. He wants this. He wanted to do this. He didn’t stop. 

Could this be good?


End file.
